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Valentine's Day
Feb. 15th, 2020 11:12 pmA couple weeks ago, Tammie said she wanted to do something special for Valentine's Day. So she booked the family an AirBnb night at a place not too far away (about 20 minutes from home).
It was the most incredible AirBnb I've ever heard of. A guest suite with mini kitchen attached to the home of a family, so far so ordinary. But... it was connected to the main house via an indoor pool and hot tub area lush with live plants and a koi and turtle pond (there was also a bearded dragon in an enclosure in that area), the pool was a 25 yard lap pool wide enough for 3 people to swim side by side, entered (from the guest suite) via a glass balcony seating area and spiral staircase. Then we also had use of a three-season room with full kitchen and dining table, library wall with rolling ladder, the outdoor tennis court (not that the weather would have permitted playing tennis), the upper deck and hanging chair, the basement game room-slash-fitness-center which had 1) a multi-function squash/racketball/volleyball/halfcourt basketball court with computerized shifting wall and nets/etc, 2) a fully-equipped fitness area with all the machines you'd expect, 3) seven pinball machines 4) a pool table 5) an arcade-style video game machine with 25000 games on it 6) a foosball table 7) a bar 8) a sectional couch and another full kitchen. And all that isn't going anywhere near the family's own living area, which we didn't go through although the pool area was surrounded by windows so we could see them sometimes going about their day.
For about $150 for the night. We'd have spent nearly that much at an arcade on the pinball and pool table. But the games were set to free play.
We got there, settled in, ordered dinner from The Cheesecake Factory via DoorDash, and went swimming until it arrived. Then we ate at the poolside table, cleared our dishes away, opened Valentine's presents (my Tammie got me a Harry Potter Smash Journal Kit: stencils, stickers, fancy pen, "leather"-covered journal), and then played pool and pinball until we were tired. In the morning, we had more hot tubbing and packed up to leave.
We were visited several times by the son of the house, a cute 4 year old, and occasionally by the dogs, 2 galumphing sheepadoodles (Old English Sheepdog x poodle).
I keep saying it was like spending 16 hours or so living like multimillionaires. And secondarily I'm reminded of the multivoice podfic I put together recently: Anthony J Crowley, Retired Demon and AirBnb Superhost. I keep trying to describe the place in terms like Crowley's reviewers used. "A vampire den, but make it sports!"
--
And this morning, I had an interesting dream. For some reason I was participating in a filk circle with Jaskier, and I was going to sing one of his new ballads. But I didn't know the words, so he gave me a book with the words in but I kept losing the page. It was an illustrated book, small drawings all around the text. Then a break was called before our turn came, and we spent it making out under a table. Never did actually sing the song, but got some very nice snogging. Lol
--
After leaving the AirBnb we drove to Rolla to meet up with Tammie's friend Tammy and her daughter. We had Mexican food for lunch, exchanged Valentine's gifts and some other assorted objects, and drove back home. Tammie and I had tickets to a salsa dance date night at 7:30 and we wanted to have time to get ready.
However, as I had kinda suspected would happen, Tammie was too tired to go out. I had tried to tell her before we made the plans that three things in one day was too many.....I was right. So we didn't go.
But we have been taking dance lessons for a few weeks now! We've learned (sort of) the foxtrot, salsa, and (one variety of) swing. Back in January, a friend of ours, David, organized a 1920's themed ball which we all attended. We watched other people dancing, and decided it was finally time to take those ballroom dance lessons we kept talking about taking.
It was the most incredible AirBnb I've ever heard of. A guest suite with mini kitchen attached to the home of a family, so far so ordinary. But... it was connected to the main house via an indoor pool and hot tub area lush with live plants and a koi and turtle pond (there was also a bearded dragon in an enclosure in that area), the pool was a 25 yard lap pool wide enough for 3 people to swim side by side, entered (from the guest suite) via a glass balcony seating area and spiral staircase. Then we also had use of a three-season room with full kitchen and dining table, library wall with rolling ladder, the outdoor tennis court (not that the weather would have permitted playing tennis), the upper deck and hanging chair, the basement game room-slash-fitness-center which had 1) a multi-function squash/racketball/volleyball/halfcourt basketball court with computerized shifting wall and nets/etc, 2) a fully-equipped fitness area with all the machines you'd expect, 3) seven pinball machines 4) a pool table 5) an arcade-style video game machine with 25000 games on it 6) a foosball table 7) a bar 8) a sectional couch and another full kitchen. And all that isn't going anywhere near the family's own living area, which we didn't go through although the pool area was surrounded by windows so we could see them sometimes going about their day.
For about $150 for the night. We'd have spent nearly that much at an arcade on the pinball and pool table. But the games were set to free play.
We got there, settled in, ordered dinner from The Cheesecake Factory via DoorDash, and went swimming until it arrived. Then we ate at the poolside table, cleared our dishes away, opened Valentine's presents (my Tammie got me a Harry Potter Smash Journal Kit: stencils, stickers, fancy pen, "leather"-covered journal), and then played pool and pinball until we were tired. In the morning, we had more hot tubbing and packed up to leave.
We were visited several times by the son of the house, a cute 4 year old, and occasionally by the dogs, 2 galumphing sheepadoodles (Old English Sheepdog x poodle).
I keep saying it was like spending 16 hours or so living like multimillionaires. And secondarily I'm reminded of the multivoice podfic I put together recently: Anthony J Crowley, Retired Demon and AirBnb Superhost. I keep trying to describe the place in terms like Crowley's reviewers used. "A vampire den, but make it sports!"
--
And this morning, I had an interesting dream. For some reason I was participating in a filk circle with Jaskier, and I was going to sing one of his new ballads. But I didn't know the words, so he gave me a book with the words in but I kept losing the page. It was an illustrated book, small drawings all around the text. Then a break was called before our turn came, and we spent it making out under a table. Never did actually sing the song, but got some very nice snogging. Lol
--
After leaving the AirBnb we drove to Rolla to meet up with Tammie's friend Tammy and her daughter. We had Mexican food for lunch, exchanged Valentine's gifts and some other assorted objects, and drove back home. Tammie and I had tickets to a salsa dance date night at 7:30 and we wanted to have time to get ready.
However, as I had kinda suspected would happen, Tammie was too tired to go out. I had tried to tell her before we made the plans that three things in one day was too many.....I was right. So we didn't go.
But we have been taking dance lessons for a few weeks now! We've learned (sort of) the foxtrot, salsa, and (one variety of) swing. Back in January, a friend of ours, David, organized a 1920's themed ball which we all attended. We watched other people dancing, and decided it was finally time to take those ballroom dance lessons we kept talking about taking.
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